another ends.

At Londa we stop half-an-hour or so, and our Boy rolls up our blankets,
and rugs, and we endeavour to concentrate attention on a dainty
breakfast in a neat little restaurant car of which we are sole
occupants. The car is made for two tables, each for four people, and a
man and a boy, both very neatly dressed, cook and serve, so you see the
line is not yet overrun, and it is still cheap, and comfortable. If I
might be so bold as to criticise what you, my Elder Brother, may be
responsible for, I'd suggest that the place to sleep on might be made a
shade softer.--Yes, we are becoming effeminate, I know--we were becoming
so alas, as far back as "the 45," when The M'Lean found his son with a
snowball for a pillow; still, we must go with the times, and even if the
berths must be hard, at least let them be level. Please note, all
soldier men who run railways in India, and receive my blessing in
advance.

Our little waiter is a delightful study with his big turban and red band
across it with the Southern Maharatta Railway initials in gold, white
tunic, and trousers, and red sash and bare feet; and can't he wait
neatly and quickly! We have figures to draw everywhere.--Here, within
arm's length, at a station, are women porteresses, each a fascinating
study of pose and drapery, and from a third class carriage just pulled
up, out gushes a whole family, the kids naked from the waist up, and the
men almost the same from the waist down. The women are in waspish yellow
and deep reds, and they group and chatter in the sun, then heave their
baggage, great soft baskets, on their heads--the women do this, the men
have turbans, so they can't, and away they all go smiling. But better
still, in the shade, there's a group of men and women seated, putting in
time eating from heaps of emerald green bananas and sanguine
pomegranates--how I wish I could stay for hours to paint!

Out of Londa the trees get finer and taller, and you see real live
bamboos in great masses of soft grey-green, their foliage a little like
willows at a distance. One cannot but think of big game; surely this is
the place for sambhur if not for tiger: and there are trees like Spanish
chestnuts with larger leaves and elms, and between the tall trunks are
breaks of under cover, over which we get a glimpse now and then of
rolling distant jungle and indigo blue hills against a soft grey sky.

Nacargali--Tavargatti--little stations one after the other all the